1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information mediating apparatus and method for providing information mediation services on a network and to a computer-readable storage medium in which an information mediating program has been stored. More particularly, the invention relates to information mediating apparatus and method for receiving an uncertain and rough request from the user and providing detailed mediation service information and to a computer-readable storage medium in which an information mediating program has been stored.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Hitherto, as a technique of providing information mediation services on a network such as Internet, Intranet, or the like, for example, a service constructing technique on the Web through CGI (Common Gateway Interface) or an application server constructing environment such as IBM WebShare (registered trademark) or the like has been provided. The information mediation services on the Internet spreads to various fields such as real estate, ordering management, order receiving management, manufacturing management, and the like. On the basis of a mediation service request from the user, a mediating system generates a specific requesting condition to a backend server (server of a service provider) in the service environment, collects, selects, and further adjusts information to satisfy the user request from the backend server, and presents mediating information matching with the request to the user. To construct such a mediating system, the user needs to input detailed conditions for enabling the matching to be promptly performed as an input to the mediating system each time or to make a program for applying an abstract request from the user to detailed conditions.
However, according to the mediating system in which the user inputs the detailed conditions for enabling the matching to be promptly performed each time, it is troublesome for the user to input. Accordingly, there is such a fear that the system becomes a nominal mediating system. According to the mediating system for applying the abstract request of the user to the detailed conditions by the program, the request is applied to the detailed conditions on the basis of information common to all of the users. The user has to input his personal information each time he executes the mediating operation. Naturally, although the personal information can be selected from a lot of output results of the mediating system on the basis of the user's personal taste or the like, it takes time to accumulate the mediation results and, during the accumulation, the user needs to input it each time he executes the mediating operation. In the conventional mediating system, therefore, the preparing operation to start providing services needs time of about a few months, and it takes a long time to start the operation. Although know-how is accumulated in association with the use of the services, reflecting the accumulated know-how to the mediating process has not be considered. When reflecting the accumulation of know-how to the system is considered, the number of steps required to develop the system increases enormously. In the mediating system, further, although it is effective to consider personal information peculiar to the user or a group serving as a requesting source, the number of steps needed for developing the system is also very large when taking into consideration the personal information.